


Her Smile

by cinnamxn



Category: Naruto
Genre: Affectionate Insults, Awkward Conversations, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Uzumaki Naruto, Unconventional Formatting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 17:53:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11949534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamxn/pseuds/cinnamxn
Summary: Sakura Haruno has many skills.Smiling is not one of them.





	Her Smile

Sakura Haruno has many skills.  
        Smiling has never been one of them.

It's not a way of saying she has a bad smile, of course. Sakura Haruno is really quite beautiful when she smiles. She simply does not show her smile, too self-conscious and caught up in her own thoughts to reveal it. Something in her brain seemed to trigger sadness at the oddest of times.

For example there was the time her, Naruto and Sai all went out to eat ramen together.  
        Obviously, it was Naruto's idea. He always loved to eat ramen with them, and originally had insisted that it would be a date with _his Sakura-chan_.  
        So she told him she would go, but it was _not_ a date, and to drive this point home, she invited Sai along, too.  
        So they had all happily been eating their ramen, Naruto had sauce all over his cheeks, Sakura seemed to be eating slowly in attempt of keeping her face clean and Sai was just plain awkward, poking at the floating piece of egg in his broth with confusion; puzzled over the outing and the appropriate behaviour for it.

"Hey, Sakura-chan, you want to train with me?" Naruto had asked confidently.  
        Sai noticed the fading honesty in her grin as he said that. In that second, something about her smile became genuinely ingenuine.

Sakura Haruno has always been uncomfortable about her strength when in comparison with her teammates.  
        Sai often wondered if he was the only person who did not see her as weaker. He had never once considered it. She was formidable at the least. At the most, she could wipe him out easily with a single punch.  
        "Sorry, Naruto." Sakura said back then, her fake smile quivering at the corners as she made a dismissive gesture with her hand. Sai could learn so much about socialization just from observing their relationship. "But I prefer to train alone."

Naruto seemed let down at that.  
        Not surprising.  
        Sai knew enough to tell that Naruto saw Sakura in a much higher regard than Sai did. It was not nearly in the same way though. Naruto saw Sakura as someone who he needed to protect, someone cute and beautiful with a rack that might actually satisfy a man.

Sai's opinion of her was quite different.  
        Strong-willed and hot-headed.  
        She was one of the strongest kunoichi he ever had the pleasure (or displeasure) of meeting.  
        Truthfully he saw nothing which was attractive about her. Her hair was an odd colour, her forehead was too large and her chest was nowhere near the giant mounds he thought men were supposed to desire, not that he really understood anything of desire.

That is enough of Sai and Naruto's thoughts for now.  
        What matters is the fake smile.

Sakura Haruno grew into her reputation with two particular boys always on her mind.  
        Her love: Sasuke.  
        Her friend: Naruto.

Both were born from strong families.  
        Had exceptional chakra levels.  
        Spent all of their time protecting her.  
        And then walked away without a word.

So goes the back-story of Sakura Haruno.

But this is about how she races through the streets of Konoha this minute;  
        her head in a slump and her posture weak;  
        she passes by windows of shops she has no care for and her sandals crack against the hard cement floor.

The pink head bobs up and down as she trudges in the rain, unable to keep her head up as she desperately tries to keep herself dry.

It's raining...  
        In more ways than one.

You see, one of Sakura Haruno's many skills is the ability to cry so easily.  
        Maybe she is weak? Emotional.  
        More likely it is that she is living in a world of pain, incomparable to what her friends feel, but never irrelevant. Nobody's pain is ever irrelevant, but that does not stop her from thinking it is.  
        She does not deserve sympathy. She is dumb, weak and annoying for finding things like this troubling. Nobody holds those opinions with as much strength as Sakura Haruno does. Since nobody could know herself better than she does, it must be true if even she believes it.

That is why she tries so hard.

So she sprints across the pavement, that smile of hers hidden beneath a frustrated scowl and she runs into that one awkward boy who cannot even comprehend the meanings of his own feelings.  
        A normal person might immediately go for a more comforting approach, but Sai just pushes her away from him and gives her an odd look. His dark eyes question her sudden appearance and she breathes heavily as she tries to avoid sobbing in front of him.  
        Don't let your sobs escape, Sakura.  
        She cannot ignore the look on his face - utter confusion. He is looking at her in the way a child might observe a game of shogi.  
        "Why are you crying, Sakura?"

There is something she needs to explain to him; right now.

How does she do it, though?  
        How do you explain your emotions to someone who does not know the feeling of love, hate or even friendship?

"Sai... I-I'm sorry." She admitted.  
        "Sorry for what?"   
         "Well..." Sakura's voice trails off and she realizes the ridiculousness of it. What is she sorry about? She has done nothing wrong at this point in time. Still, she is sorry. Perhaps for ramming herself into him in this time of need.

"Sai, sometimes people just cry."  
        Something Sakura just has to accept.

"That makes no sense." Sai mused, his gaze heavenwards. "Why would someone cry without a reason?"  
        Because sometimes, Sai, people just have to.  
        It will build up and explode at once.  
        So they cry over something small and insignificant - the tip of the ice berg rather than the massive structure beneath.

But Sai does not understand that aspect of humanity yet.

"You must be sad, right Sakura?"  
        Her reply remained uncertain, and the sob which pours from her lips nearly kept it in. "Well... Sai,"  
        Is she sad?  
        "Yeah, I guess I am."

"So... You _are_ sad..?" He is so dense, Sakura wonders if when she hits his head, it will even hurt him: maybe his skull is so thick her knuckles would crack. But, Sakura nods again.  
        _Yes Sai. I am sad. Why is that so hard to believe?_ Her thoughts scream.

Sai's arms are on her shoulders.  
        They are still in the rain.  
        Sai would assume that the weather might have a part.

It was a reasonable enough assumption, so he cautiously turned her around, pushing her into one of the shops she rushed past in her earlier distress.  
        Once they are alone; their only witnesses a bored looking clerk and a couple hundred books, Sai lets go of Sakura and retreats to the desk.  
        He talks to the clerk, who looks positively uncomfortable with the encounter.  
        After a moment, Sai returns with a fading blue towel.

Hair is soaked.  
        Pink.  
        And black.

The towel approaches the pink hair first, and Sai rubs the strands between the scratchy blue fabric.  
        Sakura looks at him with a mix of disbelief and relief, all threaded together with a slightly red sense of shame on her cheeks.  
        _What on earth is he doing?  
_         Soon, Sai would find her sniffling, the sobbing gone for good as she wipes at her streaked cheeks.

"Are you okay now, Sakura?"  
        He asks her, his lip sticking out as he puzzles over their situation; again, a child observing a game too complex for him to know.

"Thanks, Sai." She says.  
        "I feel a bit better now."  
        She still seems upset, though, and Sai is anything but satisfied with that information.

Sai rubs her cheeks for her, the confusion set in stone on his face now. He is such an awkward character, his emotions unsettling and his thoughts never on the right track.  
        Now, for example, his thoughts are in a jumble:  
_Is she angry at me?_  
_Is she gonna tell me why she's crying?_  
_Is this about Naruto and Sasuke?  
_ _Should I go ask for Ino's help?_

And then there are those random thoughts that really should not exist:  
        _Her hair is a mess, no wonder she doesn't have a boyfriend._  
_Emotions are confusing.  
_ _I wonder what that miniscule rack of hers feels like right now._

Where were those thoughts even coming from? Really? He wanted to know what purpose they served in this?  
        Useless thoughts.

Rather than dwell on these, however, he urges her into speech.  
        "Sakura... What happened?"

The reply takes a long time.  
        Lots of lip-biting and eye-contact-avoiding has followed his question before finally her mouth opens.  
        "I'm too weak to be on Team Seven."  
        His eyes widen. "That's ridiculous, Sakura."  
        "No it's not! Idiot!"  
        "Yes it is. You may be ugly but you're one of the strongest kunoichi I know."  
        "Ugly!?- Wait... No, never mind... You mean that?"

A trademark smile. Fake, naturally, but almost assuring.  
        "Of course."

Things happened.  
        And 'things', in this case, translates to Sakura placing her hands around his neck and pulling him to a level where she could reach him. Her head rests on his chest, and he does not have a clue how to respond.  
        He has not reached that chapter yet.

Sai cannot kiss or hug a girl and he knows it.  
_You are not supposed to kiss people who are ugly, anyway, right?  
_         When did he start thinking about kissing her? Her lips are nowhere near his face. Instead, they are in the crook of his neck, where humid breath leaves warmth on his skin.

His heart skips a beat and he realizes that right now, this is too much. "Sakura I-" He pushes her off of him, and sees something that upsets his heart.  
        Not again.

A large smile which spreads across her face.  
        She may be ugly naturally.  
        But a smile like that is beautiful no matter how ugly a person is.  
        When did this happen?

"I really want to kiss you, right now."  
        Did he just say that? Did he even mean it? Or was he just reading the wrong books?  
        Sai gapes as he realizes something strange about that sudden speech. The words _were_ true.  
        Odd; this feeling in his chest.

Sakura leans forward, that smile growing as she traces her lips lightly over his. The smile feels as nice as he thought it looked.  
        It's over too soon.  
        "Thank you, Sai." She says, her smile genuine and her eyes glassy. "No one's ever spoken so highly of my strength before."

He refuses to see her as someone weak or selfless.  
        But maybe he is beginning to see her as a little bit less than ugly.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I first published this when I was 14, in 2013 under the username "RandomAnimeFreak" on wattpad.com. I had been experimenting with a new style prior to reading The Book Thief and this is one of several books I posted in this style. Some have been deleted, but others might also make a return. Now that I'm 18 I can say for sure that I am sorely disappointed that this is still one of my better works.


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